AMD reveals 'Spider' platform

AMD is introducing its 'Spider' high-end gaming platform today, one week after Intel released its 45nm 'Penryn' processors.

It's the official outing of three new products under the Spider moniker: AMD's Phenom processor, the company's RD790 chipset and a pair of graphics cards. None of this is a secret, though. We've known what the package would hold since October.

Spider is based on AMD's quad-core Phenom X4 processor — the 9600 (2.3GHz) and 9500 (2.2GHz) chips. It's equipped with the Socket AM2+ interface and rests on a HyperTransport 3.0 bus. The processors are available now for $283 and $251 respectively, although in 1,000 unit pricing.

The platform includes the new HD3800 series graphics cards, formerly code-named RV670. This one is cheating a bit, as AMD officially launched the GPU last week as the Radeon HD3850 and 3870. The 3850 clocks inat 670MHz with 256MB of GDDR3 memory, while the 3870 runs at 775MHz with 512MB GDDR4 memory.

Check out our nitty-gritty details on the cards here. The 3850 begins at $179 and the 3870 begins at $219.

Rounding out Spider is the 790 FX motherboard chipset. The board features four PCI Express 2.0 x8 slots, HyperTransport 3.0, and support for 1066MHz DDR 2 memory. ®